The Evolution of Your Wireless Carrier Strategy

The Evolution of Your Wireless Carrier Strategy

How 5G changes everything

If it has been a while since you have evaluated your wireless carriers then you should dust-off your contracts are start evaluating your plans for the next couple of years. The timing of this assessment comes on the heels of recent announcements by AT&T and Verizon regarding the likely deployment of 5G wireless networks.

So what will 5G deliver in the way of performance? AT&T is expecting speeds to be between 10 and 100 times faster than their current 4G LTE network. Verizon believes that 5G could approach 200 times faster speeds than its 4G LTE which would deliver 1 Gbps speeds. This aligns with what we have been sharing over the last year or so in terms of carrier focus on driving revenue through exponential consumption.

For the enterprise, this level of performance is a game changer and will enable a whole new set of applications and capabilities. Therefore you need to start evaluating wireless carriers that can support your desired future state. With AT&T and Verizon starting 5G trials this year there could be some benefit to collaborating with them on your wireless broadband initiatives.

While the race to 5G in the United States appears to be between AT&T and Verizon it is less clear how Sprint and T-Mobile plan to respond. Sprint is currently focusing on controlling and reducing costs and T-Mobile has been less transparent with their 5G plans.

At OVATION we expect to see 5G prices certainly higher than 4G LTE but competition will continue to keep prices in check somewhat. As 5G deployments pick up momentum we will likely see 4G LTE prices slowly reduced.

In addition, 5G will be the catalyst for developing new wireless user profiles and require a new management and governance framework. Initially 5G will be more expensive and therefore your data plans, services and features will need to be optimized to achieve the desired return on investment. In fact, in many cases “preventing a rise in data expense” through ongoing optimization will be savings through cost voidance.

Also, pooled data utilization will need to be managed more closely because mobile connected employees will have immediate rich media entertainment at their fingertips and data consumption will grow dramatically. Super users will be able to skew rate plan cushions like never before if not managed constantly.

For enterprises with comprehensive IoT strategies and plans for smart campuses, 5G will be a welcomed evolution. Carriers in other countries have already deployed next generation networks and provide high speed wireless broadband service. This network capability enables an almost zero latency gigabit user experience which truly enables rich media and the performance of full cloud-based applications. This means that your mobile workspace will be transformed and achieve unprecedented capabilities.

5G performance will be transformative and enable enterprises to realize the true promise of cloud computing capabilities.Therefore, aligning the migration of legacy systems to the cloud with the rollout of 5G should be a key consideration for your roadmap planning.

As AT&T and Verizon release announcements on the results of their 5G trials we expect to see Sprint and T-Mobile to reveal their plans in order to avoid falling behind in the race to deploy this game-changing technology.

We will be happy to review this upcoming industry evolution with you as desired.